


Autophobia

by LeDiz



Series: The 48: NCIS [7]
Category: NCIS
Genre: Another one bites the dust, Gen, Mourning, Pre-Series, fear of being alone, vengeance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-21
Updated: 2016-12-21
Packaged: 2018-09-11 00:16:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8945017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeDiz/pseuds/LeDiz
Summary: Vivian stands, watching the clean up after a 'successful' mission that just feels like another failure, and realises she didn't get what she was looking for.





	

“You know, one day I’m going to figure out how he does that.”

Vivian frowned, then slowly looked sideways to where Tony was suddenly standing beside her, his hands in his pockets and a thoughtfully bored look on his face like he’d been standing there for hours. “Who does what?”

“Gibbs,” he said, gesturing with his chin. Vivian followed his gaze to where their Team Leader was standing, alone in the middle of a crowd of Spanish federal agents; totally in control of them all despite not knowing the language; accidentally positioned so that a stream of light breaking through the cloud bank was hitting his face. He looked ridiculously heroic.

A thick, salty taste welled up in her mouth, and she smacked her lips, looking away again. “It’s ingrained. Some people are just naturally great, you know? Like how other people are just naturally screw ups.”

She didn’t look around, but she could sense Tony looking at her in that way he did. She’d never seen the exact expression – he never had it on his face when she looked at him. But she could feel it. Cautious, a little bit irritated, and yet trying very hard to think of a way to lighten the situation. Because that was who Tony was.

When almost thirty seconds passed in silence, she huffed out a laugh and turned her head toward him. “What, no jokes? No comments about marines and their obsessions? No pearls of wisdom learned from all your years on Baltimore Homicide?”

“Viv.”

“What, Tony, you finally in Gibbs’ camp with this, too? You finally agree with him that I’m not worth teaching? That I’m never gonna be good enough? What, Tony? What is it you want to say?”

He just gazed back at her silently for a long moment, then turned to face her properly, one elbow rising onto the railing. “I really think you screwed up, this time.”

She flinched, but he just gazed back at her with cold eyes, uncaring.

“I think this mission was a failure. A bomb went off, the bad guy isn’t going to jail, Gibbs almost got himself killed _again_. All because you couldn’t take your eyes off the goddamn prize for five minutes.”

She turned away again, fighting tears. All the time, this whole month, Tony had always been there. Tony had always been her support. He’d been the idiot, the comforting joke, the street-wise cop teaching her the ropes. Hearing him call her a failure…

“But that’s me,” he continued, his lighter tone demanding her attention back. “Gibbs, on the other hand, thinks this is a successful op. The bad guy’s dead. The bomb is not a threat to innocent lives. We know exactly what happened from point A to point B and there is no point C. That, to him, is successful. The end always justifies the means, in Gibbs’ eyes. Simple as that.”

“Come on, Tony, we both know he’s going to ream me out once the scene’s dealt with.”

Tony just stared at her for a second, then shook his head and turned back to watching his boss. Because that was what Tony did. When in doubt, he looked to Gibbs. That was enough for him.

But Vivian didn’t have that. When she looked at Gibbs, all she saw was how little he respected her. How much of a disappointment she was. She knew that when Gibbs looked at her, he just saw another nameless, faceless FBI agent that would never do the job right.

And that hurt more than not knowing anything.

“The terrorist who killed your brother is dead,” murmured Tony. “Killed by his own bomb.”

“Probably got seventy-two virgins for it, the pig,” she muttered, and he glanced at her sideways. Again, she didn’t see it, but she could feel it.

He hesitated before continuing. “Like I said, Gibbs thinks this is a successful operation. He thinks your brother is avenged. Your revenge is complete – you should feel satisfied.”

“I should,” she agreed, then frowned as she noticed how hoarse it sounded. She coughed and tried again. “He won’t be killing any more good men.”

Tony’s nod was tiny, but it kept going as he looked at her. “In theory.”

“I should be satisfied, but you know…” She licked her lips. “You know, it’s really strange because… I’m not satisfied. I… I wanted that son of a bitch taken down, but… but I just…”

She shook her head, tapping the railing with both hands as she took a step back. “I… didn’t want him dead. Dead was… to Them, death is a reward. It’s seventy-two virgins, rivers of gold, fame and freedom and love and… and he didn’t deserve that. He didn’t… but it’s not even that, you know, I just… death is just so… easy. That one explosion, I hope to god it was fiery and painful and that he lived for minutes afterward, but… but either way, he died, just like that,” she said, and clicked her fingers. “And that’s not good enough. That’s not what I wanted.”

Tony turned around again, leaning his hip against the railing, but didn’t say anything. Only the miniscule bouncing of his hand inside his pocket made him move at all.

“I wanted to arrest him,” she said finally, extending one hand as if she could catch him in the air in front of her. “I wanted to _see_ him behind bars. I wanted that son of a bitch to spend the rest of his goddamn long life in Guantanamo Bay, staring out from behind bars and _knowing_ why he was there. I wanted him to _know_ , and _suffer_ , and this…! This was just…! So… easy.”

“And now that’s never going to happen,” Tony surmised, and her head jerked in angry agreement.

“Never! I am never going to be able to go to that Hell Hole, look at him through bars or bullet-proof glass and smile as I say ‘you are here because you killed my brother’. I am never going to be able to tell that bastard his name, or that he was a hunter, and he called me Pocahontas, and that he loved Thanksgiving and that –” She choked, but slammed her fist against the railing, forcing the words out over the threatening tears. “Now he’s just dead and there’s nothing I can do and it’s just not _fair_!”

She rocked her weight back, bending down over the railing as tears shuddered through her shoulders. She would not cry. She would not cry in front of Tony. She was strong, dammit! She could do this, and…! She dropped down into a crouch, her hands still gripping the railing above her.

“He’s dead,” she whispered. “My brother’s dead and it hurts and no one will ever feel like this…”

In the corner of her eye, she watched as Tony slowly lowered himself down beside her. Oddly enough, she actually felt grateful when he didn’t touch her, but instead turned to sit on the dirty concrete, his back against the railing post and his long legs spread out in front. He didn’t say anything, just gave her time to get control of her breathing again, and eventually she was able to let go of the railing. It took her almost another minute to turn around and sit beside him.

He didn’t give her time to apologise for the show of weakness. “The problem with an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, is that you just end up with a bunch of toothless blind people,” he quoted, not looking around. “I’ve always thought that. Always believed it. Not so much because of the whole pointlessness of it all, but because my tooth doesn’t mean the same to you as it does to me.”

“They’re nice teeth,” she offered weakly, and he smiled, reaching out to pat her leg without looking. His hand landed a little high on her thigh, but if she was honest (and out of Abby’s hearing) she really didn’t mind that much.

“I don’t like believing in that saying, but… I do believe in it. I believe in the justice system, even though I hate it, sometimes. And I like to believe that makes me a good cop.” He hesitated again, then leaned forward to look around cautiously before continuing. “But I will bet you my entire year’s salary that if someone so much as hurt a member of Gibbs’ family, he would throw out the entire justice system and shoot the person who did it right between the eyes. Because that’s what he considers justice.”

For a long moment, they just stared at each other, and Vivian was suddenly struck by the realisation that this was the first time she’d ever heard a hint of disapproval in Tony’s voice. Especially when they were talking about Gibbs.

“Gibbs believes in an eye for an eye. So when someone he knows loses someone, he wants to make sure someone else will feel that loss too,” Tony continued, so quietly she almost couldn’t hear him. “He wants someone to die, and someone to feel the pain of that death. That, to him, is a fair trade.”

“What do you think?”

“Me?” He sat back, his voice rising back to its normal volume as he considered. “I –” He stopped the jovial tone before it could really begin and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath before he reopened them. “I think we should be grateful for what we have while we have it. Revenge doesn’t do a lot for me. You?”

She opened her mouth, then stopped and looked away. “I… I want someone to feel what I feel. And I want to see them feel it. That’s vengeance to me, and I want it so badly, but… this isn’t it. I’m sure he has family, but I don’t know that. I don’t know it enough to feel sure someone else feels this pain.” She paused, licking her lips, then looked back at him. “I don’t want to be alone in this, Tony. And that’s all I feel right now: everywhere in life, I feel alone.”

For a moment, Tony was silent, but she could see his response in his eyes long before he said it. “We’re all alone, Viv. All we can do is cling to what we have right now. Find things that make us happy. Because at the end of the day, all you have is you. And I know that sometimes that’s not enough, but that’s why we do what we do. We make sure that no one else has to feel alone.”

And suddenly, surrounded by Spanish federal agents, anti-terrorist squads, NSA agents and dock workers, Vivian saw Tony: alone in a sea of people; slouched against the railing post, tired and young and still learning; scared and sad and so very, very alone. He had no real words of comfort. But at that moment, to her eyes, he really did look heroic.

“One day, I’m gonna figure out how you do that.”

**Author's Note:**

> The 48 is a collection of unfinished and/or pointless fics saved to my hard drive, now posted to Ao3 for people's interest or in case they want to adopt them.
> 
> This is the last of the ones I got to for 10 Fears. I liked some of the things they did in the Pilot that never made it into the real series, but Vivian was one of the things that was probably better off staying there. I think she learned everything she needed in just the pilot.


End file.
